[Vision2020] Dealing with Doug Spammer

[Mitch Parks]

I'm not talking about censoring anyone, in fact, that's my point. I don't
think any specific person (read: Doug Stambler) should be censored. But,
mechanisms can be provided whereby it's more difficult (or at least slow)
to subscribe bogus addresses and abuse this forum. This reduces the
likelihood of someone doing it at all, if they can't get instant
gratification.

And as I said, this would be an additional (possibly unacceptable?) load
on the moderator.

What if it takes a week for the moderator to "approve" their
subscription? So what? What harm would that really cause?

The only thing the moderator would really do is watch for abuse, and if
someone tries to subscribe from an address like "iHATEmoscow@hotmail.com",
maybe send an email asking them to identify who they are. (Providing an
actual name associated with an email address was once requested to be
on this list, wasn't it?)

But, if people were limited to a certain number of posts, the moderator
wouldn't be that concerned with who subscribed, as even the most
abusive/disagreeable poster would be limited to just a few messages a day,
which we could each easily delete. 

Of course, unsubscribing the "abusers" manually could be a futile effort
of the moderator if the person is persistent. They could send hundreds
of messages before they were removed. This is why I think both measures
are necessary, and the 3 message limit should preferrably be automated if
possible.

Just my two cents.

Mitch Parks
Moscow, ID

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 thansen@moscow.com wrote:

> Mitch Parks stated:
> 
> "What I would propose instead, is to make V2020 a subscriber-moderated list.
> 
> What this means, is that in order to subscribe to the list your subscription 
> request would have to be "approved" by the moderator of the list."
> 
> You have got to be kidding!  And just how would the "Royal Moderator" be 
> appointed?  What standards would be used in determining an 
> individual's "acceptance" as a subscriber?  How much "turnaround" time would 
> this require between the time a potential subscriber requests to be subscribed 
> and the time that person receives acceptance/unacceptance from our Royal 
> Moderator?
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow,
> Idaho
> 
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